Day of Prayer and Reflection on New Evangelization

We had the monthly recollection (prayer day) at the Norbertine College from Saturday evening till Sunday noon. It reminded me of my seminary days. We have to keep the rule of silence for the whole recollection time and I tried to be away from the temptation to check emails and facebook messages. After the Morning Prayer and Mass a visiting priest came to give a reflection for our meditation. He talked in Italian and I sat there pretending it was the best talk I ever heard! The only thing I understood was that he talked about St. Francis of Assisi. The best part of the recollection for me was to be in the chapel together with my friend priests attending the Eucharistic adoration. During the adoration I offered the prayer intentions some of you have emailed me.

I also took time to reflect little bit about two important recent announcements of Pope Benedict XVI about a theme which I am emotionally attached to – New Evangelization. The first is the establishment of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization and the second one is his announcement at the end of the Synod on the Middle East, that the next Ordinary Assembly will be on the theme of “The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith”. The purpose of establishing the Pontifical Council is to reflect on the topic of new evangelization and to identify ways to promote the new evangelization efforts of the Church. Just like a person without a purpose in life is lost, a Church without mission is dead. It has become part of our daily experience hearing about closing churches and lost people. We need to do something about this. Many are worried about the ruined state of the world, some others are more worried about the ruined state of the Church, and few others are worried about ruined state one’s own family or personal life. Yet we decide to remain idle. St. Francis Assisi had a dream about the ruined state of his Church and he decided to do his part, trying to rebuild his ruined local church. But God gave him a bigger dream of rebuilding the Universal Church. We all have to dream bigger in protecting and rebuilding the Church. I will reflect on the theme of New Evangelization in my future articles giving little more clarity to this theme.  


I want my readers to do two things for me. First I am going to suggest a Scripture verse (or few verses) every week. We all are going to memorize that verse for the week and then try to live it every moment of our life for the whole week. Then you write down the occasions you lived that word or even the occasions you failed to live that word. I learned this from the Spirituality of the Focolare Movement and found out that the Word of God has the power to transform lives. You could practice this as a family, class or prayer group. For this week I suggest Mt 5: 8 : “Blessed are the poor of heart, for they will see God”. The second thing I want you to do is to send me your prayer intentions (malankaramathai@msn.com or malankaramathai@gmail.com ) and I will ask all my friends to pray for that intention. I will publish it in the blog and will remain there for the whole week. I will use my own discretion in handling this and will publish it only when you request it through an email.

I also have to share this beautiful testimony from one of my friends, Kate Vikstrom from Canton, MI who overcomes all her life struggles through her faith in God. Please keep her family in your prayers as we continue to support each other in Christ.

Fr. Mathew,

Thanks so much for praying for us...it really means so much!  I know that God has a purpose for everything in our lives and that sometimes we can't figure out why or don't understand why certain things happen....it is in those moments, though, that I know that I have to keep my faith and trust in Him that all is going according to His plan, and it comforts me to know that.  I have had things happen in my life over the past couple of years that have touched my life so deeply, things that have changed who I am, things that have brought me closer to God and have deepened my faith...and I know that the only explanation is that these things have been Him working in my life, all the time.  I had a personal experience of God while we were living out in California...it was a moment that I will never forget and it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before in my life.  I didn't realize it at the time, but this moment would play an important role in getting me through some difficult challenges that I would face in the coming year.  I really believe that God had given me that experience, and what I learned that day, to give me the faith and trust that I would need to get through the hard times in life, so that whenever I was doubting anything or trying to lose faith, that I would remember that day, and I would remember exactly what I felt and exactly what I realized and then I would know in my heart that everything was going to be ok.  Whenever I am having a hard time with something or have a challenge to overcome, a dream falling from my sight, I remember this experience I had and it really comforts me.  It was a very inspirational moment for me and one that deepened my spiritual journey so much.  I know that with God in my life, I can make it through anything, as long as I keep my faith and trust in Him strong always, no matter how hard it might be.  

Thanks again for your prayers!

~Kate